


when in doubt, just call my name

by badritual



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Don't copy to another site, Epic Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, No Romance, Not Beta Read, Post Episode: s07e12 Victory and Death, Slow To Update, Tending to Wounds, accidental force bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25770154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: Ahsoka and Rex making a surprising discovery amidst the smoking wreckage of the Venator.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	when in doubt, just call my name

**Author's Note:**

> I've been mired in a gnarly writer's block since the end of May. This is nowhere close to being finished (and I have other unfinished things I need to be working on...) but I'm throwing it up now in the hopes it might get the creative juices flowing again.
> 
> Title from "If I Ever Leave This World Alive," by Flogging Molly.

They set up a small bonfire not too far from the wreckage: close enough that they can both still see the faint gleam of the helmets in the dark, but far enough that they can’t smell the stench of burnt flesh or taste ash at the backs of their throats.

It’s still far too close for Ahsoka’s tastes, but she knows it gives Rex some measure of comfort, being this close to his brothers. 

She rolls out a thin blanket she’d scavenged from the wreck and collapses on it in a heap, in front of the fire. Rex, she thinks, is using a poncho he found in one of the emergency kits in the stolen Y-Wing. It’s not comfortable, nor safe, and Ahsoka knows they can’t stay for much longer than a night. Surely someone will have heard about a downed Star Destroyer, someone _dangerous_ , and come looking. 

In the light of the fire, Rex finally starts unclasping his armor and letting the pieces drop into the dirt with dull thuds. Ahsoka keeps her eyes on the flames to give him a tiny, false modicum of privacy, but when he lets out a sharp breath she can’t help but look. 

Rex is prodding at his shoulder, bottom lip caught between his teeth. 

“What is it?” Ahsoka asks, sitting up on her blanket. 

Rex winces and drops his hand. “It’s nothing,” he says, letting his breath out slowly. “Got nicked earlier. But it’s fine.”

With a sigh, Ahsoka pushes up from her blanket and crosses over to Rex, settling next to him on his repurposed poncho. This close, she can see the sweat dotting his brow and the tight clench of his jaw.

“You’re in pain,” she says. “Is it your—” Ahsoka’s eyes flick to the bacta patch on the side of his head. 

“No,” he says, looking away, flexing his jaw. Minutely, he works his shoulder, as if to prove something to her, and lets another sharp sound squeeze out between clenched teeth.

Ahsoka’s eyes fall to the singed hole in his blacks, at his shoulder. “Here,” she says, gentling her tone, “let me.”

Rex gives a shake of his head, refusing to look at her. “Don’t worry yourself over me, kid,” he says. “It’ll be fine. Sleep’ll help. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

“Stop trying to be a hero,” Ahsoka says, touching his upper arm, not too far from the blaster hole in his blacks. 

Rex jerks away from her and just manages to trap a pained noise in his throat. “Ahsoka, it’s fine.” Then, in a small voice that sounds utterly unfamiliar to her: “I’m no hero.”

“Of course you are,” she says, though she crawls back over to her blanket. 

Ahsoka roots around through the things she’d pulled from the Y-Wing and scavenged from the wreck, coming up with a battered medkit. 

“Ahsoka, I said—” Rex starts to protest. 

“You were demoted, remember,” she says, making an attempt at keeping her tone light. “I’m pulling rank, Captain.”

Rex sags in the dirt with a sigh. “That’s not fair.”

“Rex,” Ahsoka says apologetically, settling back beside him with the medkit in her lap. She tugs gently at the collar of his shirt. “You’re hurting. Let me take a look.”

Rex makes a petulant sound, but he turns his head and presents his wounded shoulder to her. Ahsoka gently peels the fabric away from the wound, frowning.

“What is it?” Rex asks, when she falls still and silent beside him. 

“Can you—can you lift your arm so I can get this off?” she asks. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “It’s been kind of _off_ since we buried—since we—” He stops himself abruptly, unable to finish the sentence. 

Ahsoka nods, mostly to herself. “Okay,” she says, digging into her kit and pulling out a small pair of scissors. “I’m sorry, Rex. I’m going to have to cut this off.” 

Rex turns then, giving her a wide-eyed, horrified look. “Commander…”

“I know,” she says, assuming he’s protesting out of modesty. “We can find something else for you to wear. You could take my cloak, if you want.”

“It’s not that, it’s…” Rex ducks his head and scrubs awkwardly at his nape. 

“What is it?” Ahsoka asks, setting the scissors down.

“This’s all I’ve got,” he says. 

He sounds so small and lost and empty and _haunted_ and, all at once, she understands. _Force_ , does she understand how it feels.

Ahsoka rests her hands in her lap. She lets her eyes scan the clearing about them, the shadows cast by the dancing flames of the bonfire. Rex shudders beside her, though from the pain or the cold, she isn’t sure. Or maybe it’s something else, something deeper. 

She moves closer, until she’s close enough that she could rest her cheek against his shoulder. She finds his warmth comforting and she lets herself lean into it, carefully, ready to pull back if he doesn’t want her that close. 

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I—I feel alone too. I suppose it’s a different kind of emptiness. But on that ship, when I felt—when I felt Anakin—” Ahsoka falters, the truth too terrible for her to voice. She sidesteps that landmine for the time being. “It felt like every star in the sky had simply been snuffed out. Like all the Light in the galaxy had burnt out. I felt so cold and empty inside. I never felt so alone.”

A chill rolls down Ahsoka’s spine and she shivers, hunching her shoulders, trying to turn away from it. That cold emptiness, that gaping pit that opened up inside her when she reached out for Anakin, searched along their old training bond and felt nothing. 

Rex reaches out, gingerly, careful of his injured shoulder, and wraps his hand around hers. Squeezes gently on her fingers. “They’re gone and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he says quietly, pulling her hand into both of his. “My brothers. _Vode_. I’ve never been alone before. They were always there and now…now they’re…”

Ahsoka rests her free hand atop Rex’s and stares into the fire. “We can be alone together,” she murmurs, blinking a sudden onslaught of tears out of her eyes. 

Rex turns, giving her a sad smile. “Alone together,” he echoes.

Ahsoka manages a smile back, holds his gaze for a moment. Rex doesn’t look away, keeps his hands tight around hers, as if he thinks she’ll slip away from him too if he lets her out of his sight and loosens his grip on her even the slightest bit.

Finally, Ahsoka clears her throat. “Will you let me look at your shoulder?” 

Rex gives her a small nod. He finally looks away and drops his head. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Ahsoka disentangles their hands, picks up the scissors and starts snipping at the black fabric, gently rolling it away from his shoulder and upper arm. The blaster wound is nasty, blackened at the edges, but nothing a few bacta treatments can’t take care of. He’ll have a scar to match the one on his chest, but he’ll be no worse for the wear.

Ahsoka roots around in her kit until she comes up with some packets of disinfectant, which she tears open. 

“This might sting,” she warns him, and starts cleaning at the wound. Ahsoka can’t help but gasp when a sharp jolt of pain hits her in her own shoulder, though she thinks it might be less the pain and more that she felt it to begin with. 

“What?” Rex looks up at her, eyes wide as the moons of Yavin Prime. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ahsoka says, touching her shoulder and prodding at it. 

“Did you get hit too?” Rex reaches out, poking her shoulder gently. 

Pain flares under his fingertip and Ahsoka knocks his hand away. “No. Not that I remember,” she says, frowning. “Let’s get you taken care of first.”

Rex looks about ready to protest, but Ahsoka just takes him by the arm and starts wiping down his injured shoulder with the disinfectant. After she’s done cleaning the wound as best she can, Ahsoka pulls out a bacta patch and tears it out of its wrapper. 

In the light of the fire, Rex’s skin looks almost as bronze as Ahsoka’s does. She lifts a hand and rests her palm lightly over the wound, wondering if she might be able to knit his torn, singed skin and muscle back together using just the power of her mind. Rex curls his fingers in the dirt and waits.

It’s suddenly too quiet and the only sound Ahsoka can hear is her breath, then Rex’s echoed back at her. And all she can feel is his warm skin under her palm, and the faint music of the Force growing louder and louder in her head, like the chiming of bells. Calling to her, imploring her to just reach out to it. 

She closes her eyes, imagines reaching out across a yawning, star-specked divide.

Ahsoka stretches invisible fingers out. The Force reaches back, grasping for her.

Something cold slices through her gut and brings her up short, though. 

If there are any Force users left, they might be able to detect her. And they might not necessarily be friends. 

Ahsoka draws her hand away from Rex’s shoulder and picks up the bacta strip instead. Rex goes silent and still, docile, and something about it—the sight of Rex, sitting in front of her slumped and submissive—twists her stomach into knots. It feels just the slightest bit _off_ , like wrapping her hand around a kyber crystal that wasn’t meant to sing for her. 

Ahsoka crawls in the dirt, kneels behind him, and gently presses the bacta patch over his blaster wound. She can feel the muscles in his back tense and coil, and there’s that jab of pain in her own shoulder again. She worries her fingers over the patch, working out the wrinkles, still puzzling over the ache that lingers in her shoulder. 

She must fuss for a bit too long, because Rex reaches up and covers his hand over hers, holding it still. 

“Does it still hurt?” she asks, letting him keep hold of her hand.

“Yeah, a bit,” he mutters, letting go of her. 

“I might have something for the pain in this medkit,” Ahsoka says, drawing away to sift through the contents.

The tight, painful throb that pulses in her chest is different than the ache that still has its claws clamped into her shoulder. Something vaguely uncomfortable scratches at the edges of her conscious thought, urging her to reach out to it. 

Ahsoka pushes aside the whisper at the back of her mind when she finds a small amount of painkillers amongst her medkit supplies. 

“Here,” she says, holding up a capped syringe. “I can do it, if you like.”

Rex shrugs his good shoulder at her. “Go ahead.”

Ahsoka rips the cap off and looks Rex over, his body limned in the orange and gold of firelight. She gently takes him by the wrist and lifts his arm, gritting her teeth against the pain, and pokes him with the syringe, emptying the contents into his bloodstream. 

“I’ll check the bandage in a few hours,” Ahsoka tells him, scooping the supplies back into her kit. 

“And what about you?” Rex asks, turning toward her. 

“What about me?” Ahsoka asks. 

“You’re in pain too,” he says, reaching out and tapping her on the shoulder. 

Ahsoka flinches away. The pain in her shoulder has dulled some, though not completely. “I’m fine.”

“I’m no medic,” Rex says, a sad smile curving up the corners of his mouth, “but I’d like to think I’ve picked up things here and there.”

Ahsoka relents and fusses with the collar of her top, fingers straying over the zip at the back. She hasn’t worn her own clothes in weeks, _months_ , not since she left the lower levels of Coruscant with Bo-Katan. She also realizes, frown deepening, she’d have to remove it for Rex to inspect her injury. 

Disrobing in front of anyone who wasn’t a droid or one of her Masters would be… Ahsoka shakes the thought out of her head. They’re gone now, the Jedi are all gone and she hasn’t been one of them in months, but this is one Council rule she’s not about to breach just yet. 

“I’ll be fine,” Ahsoka says, letting her hands fall away from her collar.

“If you’re feeling shy, you could cover up with my poncho,” Rex says, gesturing to the poncho they’re currently sitting on.

Ahsoka looks down at the rumpled gray fabric underneath them. “That’s kind of you,” she says to the dirt.

“Don’t be a hero.” Rex tosses an approximation of her words back at her, his tone full of warmth. “I won’t push if you don’t want to. But if you’re wounded…”

Ahsoka sighs, knowing he’s right. There’s no room for modesty in wartime. Anyway, it’s not as if the Council could sanction her even if they’d wanted to. She isn’t a Jedi and, Ahsoka thinks, with a pang in her aching shoulder, never would be. 

“It’s okay. You’re right,” Ahsoka says, glancing up at him and managing a smile. “Can’t really worry about propriety and modesty in times like these, anyway.” 

Ahsoka turns her back to him and reaches for her nape, shifting her back lek out of the way so she can pull the zip down. She hears Rex shuffling through her medical supplies, pulling out bacta patches, disinfectant wipes, and another syringe of painkillers and setting them off to the side. 

After she’s gotten the zip down most of the way, she shrugs out of the top and lets it fall to the dirt. Ahsoka picks it up, holds it in front of herself and turns back to face him.

Rex’s brow furrows. Ahsoka senses a thread of worry stitching itself into his soul. “You—you—”

“What?” Ahsoka asks, alarm ringing loud and clear in her head. 

“Your shoulder. It’s clean,” he says, pointing at her. “No injury.”

Ahsoka glances down. Her bronze skin is indeed relatively unmarked, save some bruising and scrapes. No blaster wounds, whatsoever. “But I felt it,” she says, mostly to herself. She touches her shoulder, prods it a bit, winces and grits her teeth against the jolt that rockets through her. 

Rex falls back on his haunches, his hand flying up to his own shoulder. “Ahsoka.”

She looks at him then, that whispering voice louder and louder now at the back of her mind. All but demanding that she listen. “What?”

“I…I think we’re linked, somehow,” he says, peeling his fingers away from his bandaged shoulder.

Ahsoka quickly tugs her top back on and scrambles to her feet. “That’s impossible. You’re not Force sensitive,” she blurts out. “I would have felt it.”

And yet… 

_I am one with the Force,_ that voice whispers at her. 

A voice that sounds so much like Rex’s. But it’s impossible. It can’t be Rex’s voice in her mind. 

It’s _impossible_.

Yet, somehow, it’s the only explanation that makes even the slightest bit of sense.

“Let me try something,” Rex says, shoving himself to his feet with a weary sigh. He paces in front of the fire, fingers pressed against his mouth, as he thinks. 

Rex approaches the fire and holds his hand out to the flames. Ahsoka wants to laugh, scold him teasingly, but before she can even open her mouth to call out to him, the heat of the fire starts to prickle her palm. 

There’s a part of her that still wants to deny this connection, that’s tempted to try and play it off, but it’s blazingly clear now. 

Somehow, through all of this, she and Rex have become linked through the Force. 

“Okay,” Ahsoka calls out, rubbing at the tingling in her fingers. “You can stop now.”

Rex jerks his hand away from the fire and turns back to her, brows lifting. “So you felt that?”

“Yeah.” Ahsoka gives him a tentative smile. “Looks like we’re bonded.”


End file.
